June 18, 2007

Admit it, you miss Irwin. Ever since Mr. Chusid took a summer break from the WFMU air schedule, we've been without our weekly fix of rum-soaked calypso, a segment of Irwin's show known as Muriel's Treasure. And everyone knows that an absence of rum could utterly devastate the entire leisure season...

Thankfully, summer will be saved because WFMU is now podcasting Muriel's Treasure twice a week. Mash up a mojito, fire up your iTunes, and kick back to Irwin's vintage island grooves. Muriel's Treasure features calypso, soca, mento, and pan from the golden era of Caribbean music. Irwin now has so much idle time that he's started a Muriel blog!

Sign yourself up for the Muriel's Treasure podcast by visting WFMU's podcast page, or just open up iTunes, go to Advanced - Subscribe to Podcast, then copy and paste this link into the box.

If calypso ain't your thing, fear not! WFMU offers 17 other great podcasts for your listening pleasure, with more on the way...

May 27, 2007

When stand-up comedian Joe Rogan confronted notorious joke thief Carlos Mencia in the middle of "his" routine last February it spawned an internet phenomenon. Rogan suddenly had legions of fans and Mencia was quickly discredited. Video footage of Mencia performing material that belonged to other comedians flooded video-sharing sites. The incident spawned several blog entries, print magazine articles and news channel stories about famous joke thieves through history. There were the standard references to Milton Berle and Robin Williams and the occasional mention of Dane Cook. One story from comedy history fell by the sidelines. Don Adams was a joke thief.

Most people don't even realize that Adams was a stand-up comic. Everyone knows him as the star of Get Smart, but the character of Maxwell Smart was in fact based on Don Adams' nightclub persona. Adams was never really one to produce his own material, but then again, neither were most nightclub comedians of his era. Almost everyone solicited material from writers and Adams was no different. Bill Dana became an accomplished comedy writer having been hired by Steve Allen to work on the original Tonight Show. With Dana's help Adams was able to enjoy a successful stand-up career - but not a particularly honest one.

May 20, 2007

Bill Thompson had one of the funniest voices in history but his larynges are more famous than his name. The voice of the henpecked husband or meek little pushover in hundreds of cartoons and radio shows, Thompson's characters always seemed to be on the verge of being clobbered with a rolling pin. His most famous voice creation was the mush-mouthed cartoon hound, Droopy. He lent this well-known voice to several characters over the course of four decades, never ceasing to be amusing (incidentally, the picture on the left was harder to obtain than I would have figured - typing "droopy" into Google Image search serves up many undesirable, if not altogether stomach churning, results).

The voice that we now associate with Droopy was in use for years before Thompson first lent it to the MGM cartoon star. The Breakfast Club with Don McNeill, an extremely popular radio variety show during the thirties and forties, featured Thompson as a drooping character named Mister Wimple during the 1934-35 season. He was also called on to provide various animal noises when the script needed it (many of the networks would have an "animal mimic" on the payroll for just this specific service - jumping from show to show). Each day The Breakfast Club featured a popular(!) segment titled Prayer Time that was just as it stated - a minute of dead air while the cast and audience prayed. According to the book Don McNeill and His Breakfast Club by John Doolittle (University of Notre Dame Press, 2001) the show was a favorite of J. Edgar Hoover.

May 14, 2007

Ok, now that 90% of you have tuned out of this post based on the title alone, I would now like to let the radio, webcasting, tech, and copyright geeks in on the dirt from a conference I attended in Washington, D.C. on May 2.

The Future of Music Coalition magically planned a meeting of the minds at exactly the right time in history, setting aside a day for webcasters, musicians, copyright lawyers, legislators, and performance rights organizations to engage in a civil discussion about contentious topics like net neutrality and the Copyright Royalty Board's webcasting rate hike. I observed some meaningful conversations between groups who have been at odds with each other, but I also witnessed the old guard struggling to come to terms with technologies that are at least a decade old. I came away from the meeting half hopeful about open lines of comminication between previously warring parties, and half convinced that current attempts to create meaningful laws for music technology and intellectual property are futile and doomed to failure in our rapidly morphing media environment.

But you can form your own conclusions. FMC has generously posted streaming video of their entire Technology and IP Policy Day, broken down into individual talks (click here for the schedule and video links). Below I've reposted direct video links to each talk:

Radio WavesWebcasting royalties discussed by a panel including the CEO of Pandora, the Executive Director of Sound Exchange, an independent musician, and others, expertly moderated by FMC's Brian Zisk. This was the hot button session for me: the VP of XM shoots down Sound Exchange for claiming that airplay has no promotional value, the indie musician says that Pandora helps him sell music, and the CEO of Live 365 begs Sound Exchange to return his calls... How much sexier can it get? Video: Windows Media | Real

The Net EffectPanel on net neutrality and how a tiered internet would hurt independent musicians. Video: Windows Media | Real

David Carson of the U.S. Copyright OfficeLearn what a digital phonorecord delivery is, and where downloads and audio streams fall under this definition. Kind of. Maybe. Ok, so I was kidding. But it is amusing (and sad) to know that the copyright office is well aware of the blunders and logistical roadblocks built into the DMCA. Video: Windows Media | Real

Stocking the Celestial JukeboxLicensing and artist compensation in the digital world, the effects of new tech products on musicians, and the need for copyright reform. Video: Windows Media | Real

April 29, 2007

You Are What You Eat (1968) is a strange, psychedelic and convoluted film as incoherent as its hippy brethren200 Motels (1971) and Rainbow Bridge (1972). It belongs with that small collection of movies in which more people own the soundtrack than have actually seen the film. The soundtrack is phenomenal. The bright yellow cover is as eccentric as the vinyl itself that features audio cut-ups, squealing Moog synthesizers, relentless psychedelic improvisations, lounge music, Tiny Tim oddities, and the final appearance of The Hawks before they changed their name to The Band.

The list of those involved with the film is an incredible roster of counter culture heroes and weirdos. Tiny Tim, The Electric Flag, Frank Zappa, Peter Yarrow, Paul Butterfield, Super Spade, David Crosby, Hamsa El Din, Barry McGuire, the radio personality Rosko and several others. And despite the talent involved the film is incredibly difficult to track down in any format other than a blurry, seventh-generation, chopped up version that most likely will get trapped in your VCR. I have posted the sounds of the the soundtrack LP for your listening leisure over here.

April 22, 2007

Last week I wrote about some strange audio oddities titled Greetings From the Stars that tend to surface in downtrodden Canadian neighborhoods. If you haven't yet had a chance to read that piece, please do so before proceeding.

As mentioned in the previous article, this series of cassettes featured old show business legends on their down curve, reduced to providing one-take birthday greetings and other such pablum. The who, what, where, and why of the project is not apparent by looking at them. A listen to the Greetings From the Stars series spawns more questions than answers. I've been struggling to piece it all together ever since I found a box of them, covered in soot, at a ghetto pharmacy. The packaging provides some minor clues to the story such as company names like Pezamerica Resources Corp and Pezzaz Productions, a nineteen eighty-four copyright and a Vancouver, British Columbia address. Finding the worn down building at the edge of that city's ghetto did not, as I might have hoped, lead me to an office filled with autographed Foster Brooks headshots or relatives of Don Adams trying to claim his residuals. My assumption that the series was a confectionary by-product of the Pez dispenser people also could not have been more wrong.

After several failed Google searches I came upon a very promising clue. A Vancouver based recording engineer's online resumé casually mentioned working for a Pezzaz Productions for one year... 1984. Of course, it could have been a coincidence, especially since the resumé mentioned all kinds of interesting gigs, but working with Milton Berle wasn't one of them. Lord knows if I even just delivered room service to Milton Berle it'd be at the top of my resumé - written in bold. A phone number and e-mail address were provided for the recording engineer, and before I knew it I was having coffee with one of the key men responsible for the gaudy looking piece of work you see pictured on the left.

April 15, 2007

A couple years ago I was strolling through the poorest neighborhood in Canada and wandered into an old drug store called The Garlane. It had certainly seen better days. No longer was it the local stop for toilet paper and cigarettes, but instead remained open primarily to dispense methadone. Since this paradigm shift in priorities, much of the store's old stock has remained on the shelves untouched. 1970s board games still shrink-wrapped, greeting cards from the early sixties, and all-manner of forgotten product just sitting there, waiting to be discovered by greedy ebay dealers. It was at this store that I came across a box filled with cassette tapes in flamboyant packaging covered in gritty soot an inch thick. Staring back at me were the faces of several fading celebrities; Ed McMahon, Dom DeLuise, Don Adams, Danny Thomas, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Scatman Crothers just to name a few.

What I had discovered was a case of tapes titled Greetings From the Stars, packaged in flimsy cardboard and decorated with airbrushed renderings of celebrity heads all sporting bow ties. The covers each shouted a different theme like Happy Birthday, Cheer Up, Getting Married, Happy Anniversary or What is Love? As described on the packaging, these cassettes were "HUMOROUS RECORDED GREETINGS JUST FOR YOU - reverse side blank for your personal message." With three stars assigned to each tape, and a 1984 price of a dollar each, I naturally lugged a dirty box of these home with me that day.

April 10, 2007

Wait... doesn't that chap already have a podcast? An audio overachiever by nature, one podcast just isn't enough for Mr. Phizmiz. That's why he's teamed up with The Travelling Mongoose to produce a weekly podcast-only show called The Time Travel Musical Bazaar. And there's even a blog to go with it! Put that in your buzzword pipe and smoke it.

Here's what Ergo says:The Time Travel Musical Bazaar (TTMB) is a 30 minute slab of improvised junkshop turntablism. Using found, discarded and forgotten
vinyl, three or four portable turntables, and no headphones or form of
pre-monitoring, Ergo & the Mongoose take you on a weekly trip back
and forward through time with chance, spontaneous collages.
Each podcast will be accompanied by text, images, and occasional
extra audio features on the TTMB blog.

Subscribe to Time Travel Musical Bazaar or any WFMU podcast by visiting Podcast Central (now with an improved Help page for the uninitiated).

March 21, 2007

'Tis the season for podcast resurrection! Sound masher extraordinairre People Like Us returns to the WFMU podcast roster this week with brand new episodes of her ultra-fab show, Do or DIY (currently on hiatus from WFMU's on-air schedule, but periodically popping up as a web-only show).

March 19, 2007

Noah Zark's incredible underground hip-hop podcast, Coffee 2 Go, went on hiatus for a few months, but is now back due to popular demand! Hop on board and hook yourself up to WFMU's audio feeding tube by visiting our podcast page, where you can subscribe to Coffee 2 Go or any of our 18 other podcast shows.

February 11, 2007

Mike Warnke is one of the most famous figures in American Christianity. However, unless you're a Christian, a Satanist, a scandal fiend, obsessive internet troll, or a vinyl collector, there is still a good chance you don't know his tale. Mike Warnke is a stand-up comedian. A Christian stand-up comedian. And despite a scandal-ridden career that would put Jim Bakker to shame, Warnke alone is responsible for what has turned into an enormous multi-million dollar industry - Christian stand-up comedy. Kinda nutty, ain't it?

In reality the Mike Warnke storyhas been recounted several times over the past decade and, yes, we're about to go through it again. This piece is more than that, however. It is a history of Christian stand-up comedy, from its roots in ventriloquism to its modern day standing as perhaps the wealthiest of all weirdo subcultures.

February 04, 2007

In 1954, Decca Records released a fascinating ten-inch relic titled Music For Screaming!?Jerry Colonna at his Best.* - the majority of which I have posted for your listening pleasure here (podcast number twenty). Bob Hope's sidekick was not as some might assumeBing Crosby, nor was his closest ally in show business simply constant US military intervention. Although there is little question that those were among his most dependable associates, his real right hand partner was the unmistakably bug-eyed, and with each passing year increasingly forgotten, Jerry Colonna - one of the most strangely compelling figures of American radio and film in the thirties, forties, and fifties.

Colonna's persona could have easily been described as an "ethnic character" back in the day, if it were not for the fact that his odd accent wasn't exactly an Italian stereotype, that of the hackneyed European emigre, or anything else particularly specific. Instead his accent was vague, a put-on of undetermined origin, for the most part void of any Italian references - thank goodness - as many of those Vito Scotti type characters can be cringe inducing today. In almost all the films in which the beloved moustachioed comedian appeared, his vocal gymnastics were on display.

January 21, 2007

For just under one hundred years The Apollo Theater has catered, shaped and determined African-American cultural trends. Absurd, yet hardly surprising in the context of American history, is the fact that from 1904 to 1934 the Apollo was a whites-only establishment.1 There are many notable Apollo legends, some true and some apocryphal. Ella Fitzgerald, it is said, was one of the first African-American performers to perform on the famous amateur night after the Apollo finally opened its doors in 1934 to those who made up the majority of Harlem's population. One fascinating event however hasn't been told in thirty years and is pretty much forgotten.

Google the name Dick Davy and the only information you're likely to find is the article you're currently reading. Davy was a New York born East Village folk singer in the early nineteen sixties. Davy says he was "much more soulful and quiet [than the average folk singer] ... intimate ... and I wasn't making it. But I'd be talking in between and people would laugh at things I said. So I'd start out like very traditional ... Barbara Allen ... about forty seven verses of that. And people weren't listening for a while. And because nobody was paying attention, I'd just start talking and they'd laugh. And eventually whatever I'd say, they laughed at. And I really felt bad that I didn't have more things to say because I really had 'em with the first few things I said and they were ready ... and then I'd go back to singing another song, and they'd go back to bedlam. So I started writing down whatever they were laughing at." Dick Davy didn't know it then, nor could anybody have predicted, that this white folk singer would be, in just a few years, taking Harlem by storm.

January 13, 2007

Even in this age of the internet making the obscure common place and DVD reissues coupled with YouTube making vague childhood memories concrete again, one cornerstone of pop culture wish lists has remained elusive.

I have never met anyone who does not love the background music from the original animated Spider-man cartoon. Although the theme song from the 1967-1970 series has been released and covered several times, the P.D. Francis, Bob Harris, Stu Phillips and D. Kapross penned ditty (four writers were used for that theme song!) pales in comparison to the underscore. Listen to a muddy sounding bootleg of some of this music here. The problem for years was that no living source could remember from which music library the background ditties were pulled. Doubling the problem is the fact that these amazing instrumentals, most likely, did not have a name - let alone any musicians credited with composing them. As often is the case with music made specifically for the purpose of generic use, whether it be for radio station promos, commercials, or in this case, a low-budget cartoon, the fly-by-night companies that produced this stuff often went out of business and their many hours worth of musical reels soon disappeared, ending up who-knows-where. Furthermore, it can be nearly impossible to unearth music that was used for a particular show when the reels were never marked "background music from Spider-man" but instead with titles like "action scene," "city scape," "outer space," or "police chase."

January 09, 2007

This special podcast will feature the interview portion of Michael's weekly radio program, during which our #1 Hit fanatic chats up high-profile rock, soul, country, and jazz personalities. And just to prove that we don't throw around terms like "high-profile" willy-nilly, Michael's inaugural podcast is an interview with Johnny Rivers. That's right, the Johnny Rivers!

Visit WFMU's Podcast Central if you'd like to subscribe to Michael's weekly podcast (instructions are here), and be sure to take a looksie at our other fab podcast offerings.

I love New York, but not that way. New York City is the country's HIV/AIDS capital, and to deal with that we're going to start giving out free condoms, which will be branded like subway lines with color-coded foil packets. Next up: actual full body subway condoms you put on for protection before any mass-transit experience.

Santa's Butt is comin' to town. Confirming my belief that New England is one cranky-ass place, the Maine Bureau of Liquor Enforcement is finally allowing Santa's Butt Winter Porter to be sold just in time for Martin Luther King Day.

We'll leave the light on for you. Of course we all see motel rooms like this and think about renting porn and doing dirty, dirty things. OK, maybe it's just me and the way boringpostcards make me shiver with delight. via MUG

You know what would be like so funny? If we filled condoms with flour to look like we were drug traffickers as a joke and I took them on an airplane during my college vacation and got arrested for being a drug trafficker and then sued for having my civil rights violated and got $180k. Who's got the oregano and dime bags for spring break?

January 03, 2007

If you have yet to connect your digital feeding tube to WFMU's podcast bag (or even if you're already sucking down our sonic goo), allow me to tempt your sensibilities with the addition of a brand spanking new podcast-only show, Anti Static.

Hosted by Mike Lupica, this podcast features three tracks each week, culled from the
wonderfully obscene number of independent 45s that were released
throughout the 80s and 90s. Mike resurrects forgotten grooves from
WFMU's singles collection, along with a few of his own gems from back in those halcyon days when mail order and 'zines ruled.

Visit WFMU's podcast page to get a weekly blast of 7" rarities (or any of our other great podcasts) delivered automatically to your computer or MP3 player. All you need is iTunes or an RSS reader.

December 24, 2006

Muhammad Ali was one of the greatest athletes who ever lived and arguably the most charismatic. His trash talking poetics are well documented in both film and print and an always increasing amount of books and documentaries are released on a regular basis dissecting every aspect of his life . Well, almost every aspect.

Between being on top of the sporting world, speaking out against the American atrocities in Vietnam, being demonized by the white sporting establishment, and appearing with the scotch drinking funsters on the 1970s era Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Ali dipped his aching fingers in a number of projects that were absurd in conception and a million times more ridiculous in retrospect. As a showman, Ali never shied away from appearing on television outside of the boxing realm in any capacity. An assortment of cameos on television shows like The Sonny & Cher Show, The Jacksons, Different Strokes, The Flip Wilson Show, The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts and even the occasional appearance in the other ring at the WWF, can attest to this. In this essay we will explore four of Ali's hammiest moments. His short lived Saturday morning cartoon, his vinyl records dealing with battling tooth decay and reciting poetry, the movie in which Muhammad Ali played himself, and the comic book in which he fought Superman.

November 06, 2006

Check out the latest addition to WFMU's sparkling roster of podcasts: Phun Size Phuj, a short pod-i-phied version of Ergo Phizmiz's weekly radio program, Phuj Phactory. Surrealist audio collage at its finest!

Visit WFMU's Podcast Central to have Phun Size Phuj automagically delivered to your MP3 player every week, and be sure to browse through the rest of our podcast offerings to sign up for even more freeform in feedform.